


Desert Stone

by Gel_Pens



Category: One Piece
Genre: Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Inspired by both Wonder Woman and Pygmalion, Miscarriage (Mentioned), myths and legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:15:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28363761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gel_Pens/pseuds/Gel_Pens
Summary: The kings and queens of Alabasta have the desert in their bones and a sandstorm in their souls.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Desert Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amazaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazaria/gifts).



Legend says that the first king of Alabasta was carved out of desert sandstone, because the people of the desert had no one to lead them. Seven sculptors worked for seven days and seven nights, pouring the hopes and dreams of their people into their chisels, laying gold in the statue's hair and placing precious opals, gemstones filled with water and life into the statue's eyes. They draped the statue in fine clothing and each of them whispered a name into the stone ear, so their future king would know his people. On the dawn of the eighth day a massive storm swept over the desert. Wind howled and thunder crashed and the sculptors were forced to abandon their precious work, the heart-child and king they were creating. No one can say for sure exactly what happened in that storm, but the people say that where the rain hit the statue’s stone body it melted away into flesh, that lightning struck the boy’s golden hair and granted the spark of life, and when the statue gasped his first breath he turned the whirlwind into his breath and took the storm inside himself. 

The sculptors were sorely afraid, for there is nothing more terrifying than unexpected peace when before there was only rage, but the boy-king stood in the silence outside their shelters and laughed, a clear sound like bells chiming, head tilted towards the sky as the sun broke through the clouds over the shifting sands. 

“Fathers, Mothers, come out!” He cried, the wind in his chest carrying the secret voices of their hearts to his new ears. “I have calmed the storm for you!”

And calm the storm their new king did. They named him “Nefertari”, for he was beautiful and his compassion knew no bounds. He took the gifts his parents gave him with gratitude, and listened well to the secret heart of his people, to ensure all were provided for, because the desert is harsh and its people strong, but even the strong deserve gentle care.

Centuries passed, and the King and Queen of Alabasta found themselves with no heir. They had tried, many times, but each time they were faced with bitter loss. They sent far and wide across the land, searching for a doctor that could provide answers, a miracle worker to help them attain their goal. And so a doctor was found, but even with the doctor’s careful ministrations, the Queen was unable to deliver a child into the world. In a halting voice, the doctor explained that there was an incompleteness within the Queen, and that all of her children would be doomed as this unlucky one, to live no more than five months inside her womb and never be blessed with breathing Alabasta’s harsh and free desert air. The king, with his golden heart, soft for all that there was strength in metal, began to weep, but the queen with hair of copper and the hidden stone of the desert in her bones stared calmly ahead, the only sign of her distress a tremble in her lower lip and a wetness in her warm brown eyes. 

For three weeks, she mourned with her husband, the dreams of a future taken away from her grasping hands, but at the start of the fourth she dried her eyes.

“Husband mine,” she said, voice sweet like honey. “Before I was a queen, I was a sculptor, and before your family were kings, they were stone. Perhaps it is time again for us to carve, king and sculptor side-by-side, and bring new hope to Alabasta in advance of a storm.”

The King and Queen both made preparations. What they planned to do had not been done in millennia, and to many it had faded to myth or an allegory for the qualities that made royalty. Others claimed that it was the work of a devil fruit, obscured by misunderstanding and the passage of centuries. But the sculptors of the kingdom knew their past, the work their hands could do, and the royalty of the harsh and free desert knew where the living stone of their bones grew, and they could not be dissuaded from their pilgrimage. The queen took up her sculptor’s tools once more and began practicing on inert sandstone, creating the suggestion of the gentle face of a child in each piece of stone that spoke to her, her firm hands working until she regained the calluses she had lost in her time as queen. The king began poring over the records of the land, spending many long hours in the library as he sought to commit the names of his people to memory. Longer still, he spent time observing the weavers and metalworkers of the Alubarna marketplace, commissioning trinkets and clothing for a child from many of them. 

“It is grief,” the servants in the palace would whisper to each other as they passed the queen’s workshop. “They mourn the possibilities.”

“It is regret,” said the market-goers and craftsmen as their king walked away with children’s clothing that would surely go to nobody. 

But there was no more grief and regret in the heart of the king and queen, and after seven long months of preparations, they gathered their supplies and a simple donkey, and promised their people to return within a month. No servants were allowed to follow, no weapons in their hands, but they had no fear in their hearts. Alabasta needed a monarch for their future, and so they would have one.

The living stone that was the source of royalty lay seven days' travel from Alubarna, the heart of it protected by a sandstorm that never ceased. A peculiarity of the desert, some said, that the wind remained trapped by the walls of the valley. Those who still believed in magic would argue that it was the breath of their king that sustained the winds, that as long as the royal line lived, so too would the storm. 

As the king and queen stood at the edge of the storm, they clasped their hands together. The king inhaled deeply and the sands stirred, swaying towards him, and as he exhaled he began reciting the names of his people, from the smallest child to the oldest grandmother, and as he spoke the storm slowed, a path clearing before him and his artist-wife. They walked, the donkey following docilely behind, laden down with clothes and precious things from the land, the storm swirling in to batter them whenever the king paused in his recitation. Still, they persisted, following the winding path that was cleared by his words, until they came upon a crack in the walls of the valley. The king squeezed his wife’s hand and she nodded, pulling her fine carving tools from the donkey’s pack, and they entered the cave together.

The cave was filled with beautiful pillars of stone, polished smooth by the storm. As if in a trance, the queen walked deeper and deeper into the cave, her hand brushing across an outcropping here, a smooth boulder there. The King followed her down, silent except for his breathing, and finally she paused in front of a patch of wall, the curves and color claiming her attention at once. 

“Oh,” She breathed, hands caressing a rough edge of rock like the mother she already was in her heart. “Hello, little one.” The king released her hand and stepped back, and the queen began to carve. 

Who can say how much time passed, deep within the earth? Hours or days, they all blurred together. The queen carved a child, her hands steady and her heart soaring. A delicate ear was shaped and spoken into, her husband spoke the history of their people and the dreams of the world. Tiny hands were created, gently held and told how they would hold the land. Eyes took form and the king placed small brown opals from his mother’s own crown onto them, precious gemstones filled with the water that was life of their desert home and he promised his forming child he would teach them how to see the world. Copper deposits became tumbling locks of hair, a match to the sculptor-mother’s own in hue. At long last, the carving was done. The parents gently removed their stone-child from the living earth and draped her in fine linen clothing, but still she did not breathe, and they were sore afraid. 

Still, fear could not be allowed to stop them in their tracks. They turned and left the cave, hoping against hope that their dreams were not simple delusions, and stepped out into the storm. Even with the fierce storm raging, the child did not quicken. On the brink of despair, the father-king began to weep bitterly, and from his tears came a miracle. When they struck the carved-child’s skin, the stone began to melt away, as if wiping away dust, and be replaced by warm, living skin. The mother-artist gasped and grabbed a waterskin from the donkey’s back, and began to wash her daughter clean. Wherever the water touched, living stone became pliable flesh, but still the child did not breathe. 

Recalling the past, the king gasped, almost choking on the sandstorm that whipped around them, and set the child down in the desert sand, nearly losing sight of their precious prize as he stepped away. Something in the quality of the air shifted, a pressure on the skin of the hopeful-parents, and from a sky obscured by the sand lightning struck. 

And then there was a terrible silence as the winds that had raged in that valley for as long as anyone could remember stopped. 

Holding their breath, the king and queen crept out of the cave, and the sudden silence was filled with the sound of a child’s laughter as their carved-daughter caught sight of them and began to wave her soft child’s hands at them, babbling the not-yet-words of many an infant. 

They raced to their daughter and swept her up into their arms, crying and weeping in joy and relief, and began the journey out of the desert. They named her Vivi, for her bright life that almost wasn’t, and presented her to the people. Those who believed in the magic of the kingdom whispered of a blessing, a precious desert jewel to renew the dynasty. Those who were skeptical suggested an adoption, and never could agree on why a random child would so strongly resemble both her adoptive parents, nor why their princess at times seemed as unmovable as any stone, her hair as lustrous as metal, how in the right lighting she looked perfect as a statue and indeed could be mistaken for one, but loved her all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> A friend suggested "Vivi, but wonder woman origin story" and I just took the idea and ran with it.


End file.
